


paper lanterns

by saltsanford



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sparring, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27985773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford/pseuds/saltsanford
Summary: It’s all the stupid trees’ fault. That’s her story and Cara is sticking to it, and not just because she’s a little drunk. She’s mad about it, too. The trees on Sorgan were supposed to be a comfort, something warm in her peripheral—familiar in a way that she didn’t have to look at too closely.Cara and the anniversary of Alderaan's destruction. Set during season one, while she and Din are on Sorgan.
Relationships: Cara Dune & Omera, Din Djarin & Cara Dune
Comments: 20
Kudos: 87





	paper lanterns

It’s all the stupid trees’ fault. That’s her story and Cara is sticking to it, and not just because she’s a little drunk. She’s mad about it, too. The trees on Sorgan were supposed to be a comfort, something warm in her peripheral—familiar in a way that she didn’t have to look at too closely.

She had been so prepared for this day. Cara had long ago given up on trying to ignore it or distract herself from it. The weight of it was too heavy, and so it had become the one damned day out of the year that Cara allowed herself to feel the anguish of it all. She was planning on finding herself a quiet corner to brood, convinced that no one else on this planet would know the significance of what was surely a meaningless date on Sorgan.

The last thing she had expected was to walk out of her hut that afternoon to see all of the paper lanterns. They are everywhere, round globes strung up in Sorgan’s magnificent trees, folded boats floating among the reeds.

A breeze whistles through the village, and Cara stares, mesmerized, at the globes of all sizes dancing among the leafy branches. She lets her gaze move down the trees, catching on lantern after lantern, until it lands on Omera at the base, building another globe with deft fingers.

“What are you doing?” Cara asks, louder than she’d meant to, loud enough that several of the other villagers and Mando turn to stare.

Omera spares a glance at Cara. “It’s the beginning of the harvest festival,” she says. “We’re preparing for the celebrations this evening.”

“A festival.”

“Where we thank the rains for our season,” she continues. “We decorate with lanterns and light them at night, and there’s dancing and—”

“And it’s today,” Cara says, incredulous. _“Today.”_

She can hear the unsteady timbre of her voice and can’t imagine what her face is doing. Omera smiles at her, calm and reasonable and a little curious. Cara wonders if Omera has ever looked unnerved by anything a day in her life. “It lasts three days, actually, but yes. It begins today.”

Cara laughs. She starts laughing so loud and long that it’s difficult to stop, and Omera just continues to watch her with that steady expression. Cara turns away abruptly when the steadiness turns to an understanding just two shades shy of pity. The lanterns are everywhere, strung up on all the branches just like every celebration she’d ever been to back home. It would’ve been a lot to handle any day, but _today?_

It’s far too much.

Cara makes herself scarce. She likes the people of Sorgan, likes wandering from hut to hut, likes helping to carry the heavier baskets and doing what she can to earn her keep. But today, it seems as if the normal work has paused, the villagers taking a collective day off to prepare for the festival. When Cara passes a hut of little girls braiding ribbons into their hair, it’s the last straw. She grabs a flagon of spatchka and heads far back enough into the woods that she can’t see the lanterns or the ribbons or the light, and flops back against a tree.

She had picked this planet _because_ of the trees, she realizes. Because it was backwater and safe and boring, but also because of the trees. She hates that she realizes that fact now that it’s all ruined, and she’s just begun to sink into some serious brooding when a shadow looms in her peripheral.

Mando doesn’t react when she jerks around, blaster in hand, although that might have something to do with the way she almost _fumbles_ it like some wet-behind-the-ears rookie. 

“ _Don’t_ sneak up on me.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you,” Mando says easily. He sits down next to her. “I called your name three times.”

“Bullshit.”

Mando shrugs and lets it go, which annoys her because she wants to fight about it. The kid wanders up between them, turns to Cara, and proceeds to stare at her with big, somber eyes. Cara grits her teeth. “Can you make him stop doing that?”

Mando reaches over and lifts the kid with one hand, depositing him on his other side. It gives Cara a bit of her personal space back, but it doesn’t stop the kid from staring at her across Mando. It’s unnerving, like he can see to the heart of her secret pain or whatever, and it makes her feel raw, exposed.

The villagers had all looked at her similarly as she’d stalked off to her current hiding place, and it hits her that she was an idiot for thinking that a smaller town meant privacy. It meant exactly the opposite. These krill farmers were all the biggest bunch of fucking gossips Cara had ever met. It had been entertaining up until _now_ , now that she knows that they’re gossiping about her. At least in a city port, she could get hammered at some sleazy cantina and no one would look twice at her or the date.

They’ve all been so nice, which makes it worse, because she knows the gossip is coming from a place of genuine concern. She doesn’t want nice right now. She wants—she _wants—_

“Isn’t this the part where you ask me what’s wrong?” Cara snaps.

Mando shrugs, doesn’t even bother meeting her eye. “Do you want me to ask you what’s wrong?”

“No.”

“Good, because I was actually going to ask if you wanted to go for round two.”

Cara stares at him. This is worse. This is far, far worse than the gossip or the niceness, this is—

“I’m feeling a little rusty,” says Mando, which is bullshit because they’d sparred two days ago—at this point, they’re going for round seven or eight—and they’d just gone toe to toe with a few Klatoonian stragglers the day before that. Besides, she doesn’t think he’s been rusty a day in his life, at least not since he put that bucket on his head.

“Don’t patronize me.” 

“Fine.” He stands, and she thinks he’s going to leave. The thought makes her feel relieved and hollow all at once, but instead he extends a hand. “Let’s call it what it is. Get it all out.”

“Get what out?”

He gestures vaguely. “Whatever has you feeling all itchy.”

She squints at his silhouette, backlit against the sun. “Itchy?”

“Tense. Crawling the walls. If you don’t work it out, you’ll explode, so.”

“And you know from, what? Experience?”

“Something like that.”

“I was planning to _drink_ it all out, actually.”

“An option,” he allows, “but wouldn’t this be better?”

It would, and it rattles her that he knows this about her after two weeks. That he must see the way she’s unsteady and unfocused. That he’s willing to take a few bumps and bruises for her.

“Fine,” she says, and drains the last of her spatchka. “Give me a minute, let the drink burn off. Don’t want that being the only reason you’d get the better of me.”

Mando snorts, quiet and disbelieving. “I got the better of you last time.”

“You did not! That was a draw—”

“I had you pinned, Dune.”

“I had a knife under your throat!”

“I had a gun to your head!”

Cara shakes her head and gives his leg a little shove from where he’s still standing next to her. “ _See,_ a draw!”

“It was not,” he protests. The kid is watching them intently, eyes flicking back and forth as if he understands every word. Maybe he does. “I would’ve gotten a shot off before you could make a move with that knife.”

“Sounds to me like you’re underestimating my skill with a knife.”

“Sounds to me—” Mando reaches down and clasps her hand, pulling her to her feet, “—like you’re a sore loser.”

Cara makes a face at him and can only assume he makes a face back, from the way he tilts his head. She thinks she can read him well, for never having seen his face. It’s in the tone of his voice, the angle of his helmet, the way he telegraphs his kicks by the slightest twist of his ribs beforehand. She suspects that he has one of those faces that can’t hide a damn thing, that every expression would be spread across it for the world to see.

For a moment, she’s relieved that her own face is so stoic, but then she remembers Omera watching her earlier and wonders with a stroke of horror if maybe she’s easy to read as well.

“Let’s walk,” says Mando. He scoops the kid up, jerks his head towards the trees. “Burn off the drink.”

She hasn’t had enough to get well and proper drunk, only the beginnings of a buzz, but she walks it off with him anyway. The buzz goes away quickly—she’s always had a difficult time getting drunk, her body bound and determined to keep her aware, alert. Cara doesn’t like to indulge in the stuff too often anyway. After a battle, or maybe a long day—

Or, of course, today.

The weight of the day returns to her as they walk in silence, memories clinking together with their sharp edges. She had been wearing her favorite blue sweatpants. She had been basking in the sunlight of her dorm room. She had been on the phone with her mother. She had been painting— _painting!_ It seems so far away now, like a dream that belonged to someone else. She had been painting and there was a streak of red paint along her cheekbone, from sliding a second paintbrush in her hair. She had been painting a sunrise.

Cara laughs suddenly, something between a snort and a giggle. Mando tilts his head. She knows he’d drop it in a second if she waved a hand and said _forget it,_ which is what she means to do, but instead she says, “I used to paint, you know.”

It sounds so flat out ridiculous to her that she’s surprised when he says, “That sounds nice.”

_“Nice?”_

“Yeah.” He pauses, glances behind them to make sure the kid is keeping up. “It must be nice to paint what you see. I’m not a good artist.”

A real grin crosses her face at that, at the thought of Mando seated in the cockpit of his ship, brush or pencil in hand. “I wasn’t either,” she says, although she was. “Use my hands for different things now.”

She holds them in front of her now, fingers spread out. Mando catches the hand closest to him and pulls it in front of his face, examines her knuckles clinically. “You ice these? Popped that raider pretty good. They look swollen.”

Cara yanks her hand back, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I iced it. It’s fine, doesn’t even hurt.”

She gives him a quick jab to the side to make her point, and he _oofs_ a little, pops her back. It’s just a little punch, but it makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in anticipation, because yes, this is what she needs, this this _this_ , only a thousand times harder and faster.

He must see it on her face—fuck, she _is_ expressive, isn’t she, how annoying—and stops, glancing around. There’s a little clearing just up ahead. “You good?”

“I’m good,” she says, and practically sprints to the clearing.

Mando follows her. “Best two out of three, no weapons?”

“You’re on,” she says, and lunges at him.

Her swing is a bit wild, and he ducks it cleanly with a swift jab to her solar plexus. She doubles over with a wheeze and turns it into a back kick that sends Mando staggering away from her. He’s on her again at once, not giving her a single moment to think or breathe or shatter into a million tiny pieces.

Cara sinks into the rhythm of it all. They move together like they’ve known each other far longer, like they’ve had a thousand of these matches instead of less than ten. It’s gloriously messy and rough and Mando doesn’t go easy on her, doesn’t pull his punches. She thinks she might love him a little bit for that, because when she gets him on the ground with her hands wrapped around his throat, she knows that he really gave her absolutely everything he had.

She rolls off of him. They lay there, panting, and Cara stares up at the sky. She’s startled to find her face wet and reaches a hand up, wondering if she was cut, thinking of red paint beneath her cheekbone. It isn’t blood that stains her fingers, but the saltwater of tears. She blinks up at the sky, embarrassed, but still unable to stop them from leaking out of the corner of her eyes, down her temples soaking into her hair.

Mando doesn’t say anything, just reaches up from where he’s laying and curls a hand around her ankle, hard enough for her to feel the squeeze through the thick leather of her boots, hard enough to ground her. She focuses on the strength in his fingers, lets it anchor her to Sorgan, to this stupid planet with its stupid trees on this stupid, stupid day.

The kid has wandered over to her again, but she’s too scooped out to care about his staring now. Cara stares back, lets him reach out to touch her temple. The kid makes a little coo—of distress, of comfort, she doesn’t know, but she reaches out a finger and touches his cheek. “I’m okay,” she says, and realizes that it’s true. The screaming howl inside of her has quieted to a weeping rage, and she moves through it, until the tear tracks have dried on her cheeks.

Cara sits up first. Mando is still quiet, still holding tight to her ankle. She wraps her fingers around the semi-circle of his hand and squeezes lightly until he flips his hand around and squeezes back, palm to palm, thumb moving across the back of her bruised knuckles, the one that she _had_ iced, but probably not for as long as she should have.

Mando stands and pulls her to her feet in one swift motion. “That’s some roundhouse,” he says. “Pretty sure you cracked my ribs with that thing.”

She rolls her eyes as he lets go of her, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “Oh, please. Don’t be such a baby.”

He leans down to pick the kid up, and they begin the long walk to the village together. Dusk is gathering at the edges of the trees, and Cara lingers at them, giving Mando a smile as he heads off to find the kid something to eat. The villagers have made progress in the decorations, and Cara lets her eyes move over them until her gaze meets Omera’s. Cara walks over to her, but before she can say anything, Omera holds out the small paper globe in her hands.

“Would you like to help?”

Cara blinks, apology frozen on her tongue. “Help?”

“Light the candles,” says Omera. “You don’t have to, of course. I’d be happy to bring you dinner if you’d like some distance from the celebrations. But it might help, if you’d like to participate.”

Her guilt increases tenfold. “I didn’t mean to…you know. Be a bitch about your festival.”

Omera lets out a startled laugh. It’s a nice sound. “You were hardly a bitch, Cara. Even if you were—sometimes we have our reasons.”

“For being bitches to people who are just trying to be nice?”

“Exactly.”

Cara decides then and there that she likes Omera. “It’s a hard day. Sometimes I forget that what it means to me isn’t what it means to others. That life goes on, in other parts of the galaxy.”

It’s the most she’s said about it in years, but it helps that Omera is focused on folding the lantern in her hands and not looking at Cara, just like it had helped when Mando had cracked her in the temple so hard that stars had sparked in her eyes, stars that looked just like the aftermath of her dying planet.

Cara has never shared this day with anyone. _Anyone._ Not even during the war. She had not gone to a single vigil, not visited a single memorial. This day was for her rage and pain and mess. She certainly hadn’t ever expected to share it with a bounty hunter and an alien child and a widow with kind eyes on a backwater planet with its lovely, lovely trees.

Cara looks over at Mando, who is seated on a nearby chair trying to convince the kid to eat whatever mush is in the wooden bowl between them. She looks at Omera, at her smile that demands nothing. They’d held her together today, with blood and bruising and the offer of the delicate paper lantern in Omera’s hands.

Her little sister had loved that sort of thing, lanterns and lights and ribbons. She had loved the rebellion more, sixteen and blazing with the fight, had given it everything, up to and including her life.

“Yeah,” says Cara. She takes the paper lantern from Omera and offers her a smile. “Yeah, why not.”

Omera lets her be, leaves her some flint and a basket of candles to seat in the remaining globes. She sits quietly for a while, fitting the candles one by one lining them up in an ever growing circle around her.

“Mando,” Cara calls, and he looks over at her. “Come over here.”

She balances herself on two rickety chairs and holds out her arms for Mando to hand her a lantern. She thinks once more of her sister, of decorating the woods behind their house every year, handing the lanterns to each other just like this.

 _Bellianna,_ she thinks as she hangs the lantern and lights a little flame inside of it.

_Mom._

_Dad._

_Rya._

_Marcus._

It’s a long list, but she continues, moving from tree to tree around the clearing as Mando finds more and more globes for her to hang, until he hands her the final lantern.

 _Alderaan,_ she thinks, and sets the lantern ablaze with light.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you [melissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniMax/pseuds/MiniMax) for the beta <3  
> not me stress writing fic while waiting for friday's episode I'M FINE IT'S FINE.


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